


Maria Hill and the Three Bears

by RomanoffonamoR



Series: Marvel Cinematic Littleverse [3]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Age Play, Bigs and littles are known, Little Bobbi Morse, Little Clint Barton, Little Maria Hill, Littleverse, Maria Hill centric, Maria is a little pretending to be big, Marvel Cinematic Littleverse, Multi, Non-Sexual Age Play, Other, Past Child Abuse, Past Questionable Missions, Past Torture, injuries, little Natasha romanoff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-28
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-12-08 06:34:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11640948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RomanoffonamoR/pseuds/RomanoffonamoR
Summary: Maria Hill gets tasked with babysitting Little Natasha, Clint, and Bobbi.What could possibly go wrong?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Here is the next installment of my SHIELD age play series! For those just finding it now, you really should read the previous two installments before reading this one. They are super short and directly lead into the events of this one. 
> 
> For those who haven't read them and prefer not to, just know that Maria is a Little who's pretending to be Big.

This was a terrible idea. An awful, no good, terrible idea. 

Maria had half a mind to march back to Director Fury’s office and pitch a fit, but he was already looking at her suspiciously due to the telephone mishap earlier in the day, and she was sure that stomping her feet in indignation whilst pouting up a storm wasn’t going to help her situation any. 

Not to mention he was her boss, and she’d never turned down a mission from him before. What if he was disappointed in her? What if he made that face he often made at Barton whenever he did something stupid out in the field? 

Nope. No thank you. She’d rather crawl across hot coals in her birthday suit than risk his “disappointment face” triggering her into a tantrum of tears.

Her near panic attack over a plastic telephone had been hard enough to explain, but a meltdown on the floor of the Director’s office would most certainly be a one way ticket to the Psych floor, and if anyone could take one look at her tear stained face and see what she was hiding it would be one of those emotional voodoo bastards in Psych. 

So yeah, she was definitely not risking that. 

“Just think of it as a mission, Hill. You’ve gone into the field with these three before and it’s worked out alright.” She shook her head as she coached herself, rubbing at her temple with the palm of one hand. “Of course they weren’t little at the time, but it should still be the same. Just keep giving them tasks to keep them busy. Come on, you can do this Hill.”

“You know we can hear you through the door, right?”

Maria paused in her monologue, only just noticing she’d been standing outside of Coulson’s office for the last few minutes. “ _Fuck_.” This didn’t bode well for her if she was already losing time inside her head. It had been three days since she’d last succumbed to her little self, there was no way she was going to manage three more without slipping up.

“Language!” A younger female voice shouted from inside the office, a chorus of giggles erupting from the room afterwards. 

Maria sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose, attempting to steady herself before reaching for the door and pulling it open. 

The size of Coulson’s office never failed to amaze her, and she hoped her envy wasn’t evident on her face as she stepped inside and shut the door behind her. The room itself was at least four times as big as her own office, with floor to ceiling windows along both the back wall and the one to her left. The only corner office in the building, as far as she knew.

The wall to the right was taken up with two large bookcases that bracketed a well loved and worn looking dark beige sofa. At least a dozen pillows in all colors of the rainbow were piled on top of it, with a few having fallen to the floor as well. Mixed in with the pillows were an assortment of blankets ranging from big kid comforters to soft baby blankets. Maria had no clue how anyone managed to actually sit on the sofa amidst all of the clutter. 

On the other side of the room next to the full length windows was a makeshift playpen seemingly constructed from one of those collapsable fabric dog fences you could buy at Petco. Only instead of toys filling up the interior, it was filled with red, white, and blue plastic balls. 

Agent Coulson had a Captain America themed ball pit in his office.

Doing her best to suppress the side of herself that thought this was totally, outrageously, unfair, Maria turned her gaze to the desk in the middle of the room where its four occupants currently sat, two on each side, with both a chess board and a checkers board between them. 

“Really, Sir? I hope you’re letting the toddler win.” Maria grinned, crossing her arms over her chest in amusement as she watched her fellow handler waffle between which of his remaining pawns to move. Most of his advanced pieces were already off the board, surrendered in a pile next to the two pawns and a knight he’d managed to capture himself. 

“Who says I’m letting her,” he deadpanned, glancing briefly from the board to look up at Maria. He was honest to god sweating, and Maria had to bite her tongue to keep from laughing. “Besides, I’m pretty sure she’s cheating.” He turned his head now to glare accusingly at the two year old sitting across from him. “There’s a little bit of adult Natasha in there telling her where to move the pieces, am I right?”

For her part Little Romanoff just beamed cheekily from around the pacifier in her mouth, neither confirming nor denying his assessment. She had one of Coulson’s captured pieces in her hands and was making it dance along the edges of the game board. 

“Wait a minute, she can do that?” It took Maria a few seconds to catch on to what the other agent had said, but now her mind was going a mile a minute as she tried to imagine how that could even work. 

The psychological mechanics behind a Little’s transition between their adult self and little self was similar to the condition known as Dissociative Identity Disorder, or more commonly, Multiple Personality Disorder. Maria knew from her own experiences that there was indeed a shift between what felt like two separate and distinct personalities. 

When she was little, she was  _little_. Her adult self had never made an appearance, or even felt like it was within her capabilities to procure. In fact, when she was little she often forgot that she even  _had_  an adult self. It always took her either passing out or falling asleep for her to eventually change back, so the idea that she could be both at the same time was not just absurd, it was also incredibly appealing. 

“Natasha can do all kinds of neat things in that head of hers,” Coulson explained, snapping Maria out of her thoughts. “Isn’t that right my little sociopath?” He cooed, the generally offensive term actually sounding like an endearment in this context. 

Little Romanoff smiled around her pacifier once more, seemingly unbothered by the term, or at least only choosing to react to his pleasing, caretaker tone of voice. The only outward shift in her behavior was that she now had two chess pieces in her hands and the actions she was miming with them could no longer be mistaken for dancing. 

“That’s absolutely terrifying, Sir,” Maria responded honestly, pulled her gaze away from the girl to look questioningly at her co-worker. Had Romanoff always been able to do that? Be both at the same time? Was this something her previous employers had taught her? Or was it a skill she had been born with? Was it something other Littles could learn?

“There’s a reason she’s the only agent approved for Cookie Jar missions,” Coulson offered back, shrugging his shoulders as he finally moved his piece one space across the board. Romanoff wasted no time in capturing it and plucking it off the board, dropping it into her pile with obvious delight. 

“We may work for the government, Hill, but we’re not barbarians. Do you really think we’d send a two year old into dangerous situations if there wasn’t also a 24 year old in there, holding her hand the entire time?”

“I’ve never really thought about it before, Sir.” Maria honestly hadn’t. She knew about the occasional Cookie Jar missions, but she’d never been assigned to handle one before. 

Not that she was complaining. Truth be told, she’d always found it morally reprehensible the idea of using a two year old as bait to entice their more sexually perverted enemies into a trap. But knowing what she knew now about Romanoff, she could at least understand why the girl volunteered for them, and never seemed any more worse for the wear afterwards. 

“Are you guys almost done? We’ve been done aaaaaages ago.” Morse piped up, having broken her silence from her spot on the other side of Coulson. She was leant back dramatically in an office chair, her bare but bandaged feet perched on the edge of the desk, aiding in swiveling herself left and right, left and right. 

Across from her Barton looked just as bored, his arms crossed on the desk and his chin resting atop them. The checker board between the two was in total disarray, and Maria couldn’t for the life of her tell which, if either of them, had won the match.

“Oh, so now we’re eager to go? The two of you put on a pretty impressive show earlier when you found out,” Coulson chided playfully, moving a chess piece into what even Maria could see was a game ending move. 

Predictably, Romanoff quickly snatched his piece off the board and replaced it with her bishop, reaching further and knocking his king onto its side. “Check!” she squealed, momentarily pulling her pacifier from her mouth so no one could misunderstand her. 

Coulson laughed and reached across the board, ruffling his fingers through the toddler’s hair. “It’s check mate, and you’re supposed to let me knock the piece over. That’s why it’s called a surrender.” 

Romanoff shook her head and began knocking the rest of the pieces onto their sides, giggling as a few of them rolled off the board and onto the desk. “Check! Check! Check!” 

“Natty you’re not supposed to make a mess!” Morse reprimanded, sitting up straighter in her chair now as she watched the toddler pushing a few of the pieces hard enough so that they rolled all the way onto the floor. 

“Bobbi honey, it’s fine. I’ll clean it up later. Why don’t you go get your socks and shoes on while I quickly brief Maria? You too Clint. And please help your sister with her laces, we don’t need any more bumps and bruises now do we?” Coulson suggested, his orders never actually sounding like orders when he was addressing Littles. 

Maria watched as the two begrudgingly pulled themselves from their chairs and over to the sofa, where half a dozen pairs of shoes could now be seen shoved beneath. 

“About that Sir, are we sure this is a good idea? Me with the three of them? I’m sure they’d be more comfortable if you were there to watch them,” Maria re-found her protest, having temporarily forgotten why she was even there in the first place. 

She was supposed to take the Littles back to their shared apartment in the city and stay with them all weekend, or at least until one of them became their adult selves again and could watch the other two. 

It was incredibly unusual for SHIELD to send a Big home with a Little, the organization firmly believing that in order to function as the giant family unit that it was, smaller family units couldn’t also exist within the structure. It was one of, if not  _the_  biggest drawback to working at SHIELD. 

If you were a Little you were giving up the chance to ever have a mommy or daddy. If you were a Big, you were giving up the chance to have a son or daughter. At least in the Big and Little sense, not the reproductive sense. Intimate relationships and biological families outside of SHIELD were still frowned upon, but weren’t expressly forbidden like Big and Little relationships were.

This rule had never really bothered Maria, it actually made things easier for her since no one was expecting her to be anyone’s mother. All Bigs at SHIELD were automatically relegated to secondary caretaker positions, typically aunts and uncles, or sometimes grandparents depending on their age. It was easier for her to fake an extended family role, especially since most Littles saw her as the evil step mother anyway and wanted nothing at all to do with her. 

She knew however that this rule deeply effected Coulson, whom she felt had more caretaker instincts than any other Big at SHIELD. Maybe more than all the other Bigs at SHIELD  _combined_. He was the textbook definition of a Daddy, and it hurt something deep inside her to know that he would only ever get to be Uncle Phil, at least while he remained employed at SHIELD.

“I honestly have no idea how this is going to play out, but Director Fury has me working on Tahiti this week so I can’t be the one to watch them.” Coulson glanced over his shoulder at the two kids who were now squabbling over whether Morse could tie her shoes properly on her own. “After this mornings mission, Fury wants them to spend the weekend as Littles. But I would honestly give it a day, maybe a day and a half before all three of them are adults again.”

His words should have been encouraging, but even a day and a half felt like an eternity to Maria when she knew she  _had_  to be Big the whole time.

“You’ll be fine Hill. Natasha’s half in, half out anyways. If either of the other two fall out of a tree or try and set the apartment on fire, I’m sure she’ll wake up and help put out the flames.”

Maria narrowed her eyes at this. “Are either of those scenarios likely to happen?”

Coulson actually looked uncertain himself. “I’d like to think that a few bruised ribs and a sprained ankle would be enough to keep them firmly on the ground, but well, you haven’t seen their apartment yet so I couldn’t really say.”

And how was that for cryptic? Maria would have shoved him for toying with her like that, but Little Morse quickly took his attention as she approached, a fresh set of tears streaming down her cheeks. She opened her mouth to say something but quickly closed it as a sob emerged instead. 

“Oh Bobbi, honey, it’ll be alright. It’s just for a few days, and you’ll have your big brother and little sister with you the whole time,” Coulson reassured, quickly getting to his feet and pulling the distressed eight year old into his arms. Morse seemed genuinely embarrassed by her outburst and kept her face pressed into her handler’s shirt, avoiding looking at Maria as Coulson did his best to calm her down.

Barton was suspiciously quiet at the display, his gaze nervously flickering between Morse and Romanoff, as if worried that tears with one would lead to tears with the other. Maria didn’t think that Romanoff seemed too distressed at her big sister’s behavior, but for all she knew about the toddler's expressions, the girl could actually be wetting herself right now and was simply too distracted with the task to notice anything else. 

On second thought, Maria really hoped that wasn’t the case. She’d changed diapers before for actual babies, but never for a Little, and it just didn’t sit well with her. She knew it had to do with the fact that she was a Little herself, so the disconnect Big’s seemed to have when dealing with a naked Little wasn’t there, and it felt like much too intimate of an act for her.

Not that she was necessarily attracted to Romanoff, but there was a reason Littles were only ever intimate with other Littles, and Bigs were only ever intimate with other Bigs. It was biologically how they were wired to see others inside and outside of their group. Not to say that sexual relationships between Bigs and Littles didn’t still occur on the fringes of society, but when they did, even if that Little was in their adult mindset during the acts, it always invariably contained an imbalance of power that blurred the lines of consent, both legally and morally.

Which of course meant that Maria’s sex-life was entirely non existent, and that she may or may not technically still be a virgin, depending on whose definition of the word she used. But that was besides the point. Being attracted to Littles didn’t mean being attracted to _all_ Littles, and seeing another Little naked wasn’t inherently sexual in it’s own right, but the act of changing a wet diaper did cross that line for her, and so she silently prayed that Romanoff only liked wearing diapers, and not actually using them.

Ever the mind reader, Coulson seemed to pick up on her train of thought and shuffled the crying child still in his arms around so that he could follow Maria’s gaze to the suspiciously quiet toddler. “If you’re worried about having to change her, don’t be. As long as there’s a bathroom nearby she’ll use that just fine on her own.”

Maria wanted to be more shocked that Coulson could read her so well, but honestly the man was more of a spy than he let on sometimes. Being around Barton and Romanoff so much must have been wearing off on him. 

“Unless she gets sick. Remember that one time she had a bullet wound and a fever and she-“

“Clint, honey, we talked about this,” Coulson quickly interrupted, “What was that agreement we all made?” 

Barton winced and hunched in over himself, clearly crestfallen at having been reprimanded, even if the correction was mild and spoken without malice. “What happened in Budapest stays in Budapest,” he parroted back the phrase Coulson must have taught him at some point, and Maria quickly racked her brain trying to remember what mission would have brought Strike Team Delta to Hungary. 

She was coming up blank, which meant that it was probably past her clearance level; something that occasionally still happened despite her senior position in the organization. She may have been the Deputy Director of SHIELD and Fury’s right hand man, but she wasn’t naive enough to think that meant he would fill her in on everything going on around them. The man was way too fond of compartmentalization to risk doing that. 

In the end it took a few minutes, but Morse finally calmed down in Coulson’s arms, and Maria watched as he whispered something that only the girl could hear. Whatever he said seemed to do the trick and she pulled away from him, rubbing her arms over her face to try and dry her tears. 

“What did you tell her?” Maria asked once the girl had moved over to Barton, leaning into him subtly for support. Barton didn’t wrap his arms around her, but it looked like he really wanted to. 

“I told her that she could ride shotgun on the way home.”

And like that the tension was back again.

“What?! That’s not fair! I called shotgun earlier!” Barton exclaimed, looking for all the world like a boy betrayed. 

Coulson at least at the decency to look apologetic as he addressed his charge. “I know you did, but the more I think about it, it’s probably safer for you to ride in the back seat. You’ve got three bruised ribs and a concussion. Bobbi’s wounds are mostly superficial, other than her ankle. If something were to happen and god forbid the airbags were deployed, it would do you a lot more harm than it would her.”

Barton was looking grumpier by the minute and Maria wanted to slap Coulson for putting him in a mood before handing him off to her. She knew how difficult adult Barton could be when he was feeling slighted, she could only imagine how salty Little Barton would be. 

“Fine, but I get to pick the music.” 

Maria was shocked at how easily the boy relented, though she noted that he still didn’t look happy about it.

“That seems fair. Thank you for not putting up a fight about this. You’re a good big brother, Clint, I hope you know that.” Coulson praised the boy.

“Yeah, well, someones gotta look out for these two,” Barton replied back, trying to play off his handler’s words as if they didn’t effect him, but the slight blush developing on his cheeks showed how he really felt about the compliment. It was almost endearing, if Maria didn’t otherwise know what a little shit the boy could be. 

“Okay, well, enough mushy talk. You guys need to get on the road before traffic gets bad, or Natasha here falls asleep.” Coulson clapped his hands together, walking around his desk and grabbing two small child wheelie suitcases. He handed the one with the Transformers on it to Morse and the one with Paw Patrol on it to Barton before bending down and picking up what was clearly a Black Widow themed red and black diaper bag.

“Really, Sir? I thought you said-“

“She may not need you to change her, but that doesn’t mean she won’t need to change herself. Diapers can get stale even when they aren’t being used. Besides, she’s got other things in here; pacifiers, bottles, a change of clothes, some snacks, and I think a blanket for if she gets cold in the car.” Coulson explained, rattling off items that he could remember from the top of his head. 

It was almost as if he hadn’t packed it himself, but then again, why would he have? He was Uncle Phil, not the girl’s father. Adult Natasha had probably packed it on her own, and once again Maria felt a pang of sadness for the Big/Little relationship that her agents would never have. 

“Don’t forget Ducky!” Morse suddenly piped up from where she stood fidgeting with the extendible handle of her bag, collapsing it and pulling it back out again, over and over and over. 

“Oh yeah, how could I forget about Ducky? Of course Ducky would be in there,” Coulson laughed as he unzipped the top of the bag and fished around inside for a moment before pulling out a faded and worn looking yellow stuffed duck. 

It took everything Maria had not to cry out as Coulson briefly waved the animal at her and then tossed it across the desk to Natasha, who caught it easily and squished it against her chest, cuddling it in the crook of her arm. It wasn’t her fuzzy slippers, but it reminded Maria enough of them that she felt the agony of their loss all over again. 

_Shut it down Maria._

_They’re going to figure you out if you start crying over a stupid stuffed animal._

Thankfully it didn’t seem like Coulson or the others noticed her momentary distress, and she patted herself on the back for once again another crisis averted. She may as well heap on the self praise now, because she was almost a hundred percent certain it wasn’t going to last. 

This weekend was definitely going to be a disaster, and they hadn’t even gotten out of the building yet. 


	2. Chapter 2

The trek from Coulson’s office to the parking garage beneath the Triskelion had been surprisingly uneventful. Maria could sense the older two Littles were still apprehensive about leaving with her, but they trusted Coulson, and Coulson trusted her, so they hadn’t put up much of a fight. A little bit of grumbling and dragging of feet, but Maria couldn’t be certain that wasn’t actually due to their injuries, and not their attitude.

Morse, or Bobbi, as she was beginning to refer to the Littles by their first names, had a pretty severely sprained ankle. She wasn’t outwardly limping on it, or in any obvious signs of pain, but Maria knew that was Agent Morse’s training seeping through, and not that it didn’t hurt the girl to walk.

All SHIELD field agents over level 4 had to go through captivity training, learning how to withstand torture without breaking and divulging company secrets. If Maria remembered correctly, Agent Morse had one of the highest scores on that particular assessment, second only to Agent Romanoff, and possibly Agent Barton. Which, now that she thought about it, might have been why those three always seemed to find themselves captured and tortured.

One took greater risks in the field when the potential dangers weren’t as off-putting as they should be.

Still, once they arrived at their apartment, Maria was planning on setting the girl up on the couch with a pillow and an ice pack, and sincerely hoped she was strong enough not to take no for an answer.

“Alright, here we are, parking space 4780PC-4. Natasha, I need to put you down for a moment, okay?” Maria waited for the increasingly drowsy toddler to nod before shifting the girl off her hip and onto her own two feet. Standing up, she cracked her back as discreetly as she could, secretly amazed that she’d managed to carry the 140 pound girl the entire journey, only needing to put her down while she was getting her overnight things from her locker.

She wanted to think it was because she was in such good shape, but it was more likely due to the fact that Natasha turned into an octopus while being carried. Her arms and legs, once wrapped around her victim, were strong enough that Maria barely had to use her own arms to hold the girl up. Which worked out well since she also had to carry the girl’s diaper bag as well as her own duffel.

“Alright, so you three have been in this vehicle before. Suitcases go in the trunk, diaper bag can go on the floor in the back. Bobbi, you’ve got shotgun. Clint, behind her, please. Natasha, do you need help getting into the car seat?” Maria looked between the three Littles, waiting for the older two to start moving before focusing her attention on the toddler leaning unsubtly against her.

Natasha simply nodded her head, her eyelids drooping as she sucked once on her pacifier before unwittingly letting it fall from her lips. Maria Hill wasn’t Deputy Director for nothing and easily snatched the soother out of the air before it could land on the dirty pavement. “Alrighty then,” she stuck the item in her pocket before helping the sleepy girl to the car’s driver side backseat door.

Littles under two years of age were extremely uncommon in the general population, and as a result were even less common at SHIELD. Maria could honestly only think of two others off the top of her head, and both of them were still students at the academy so didn’t technically count. This of course meant that the majority of SHIELD vehicles weren’t equipped to safely transport toddlers. Coulson, being Natasha’s preferred handler, had personally outfitted a few of his designated rides with an adult sized, Little approved carseat.

Maria sincerely hoped it wasn’t as complicated as actual baby carseats tended to be.

“Okay, here we go, step up,” Maria instructed the girl once she’d opened the car door, and to her relief Natasha managed to pull herself up and into the vehicle on her own.

Once inside, the toddler quickly settled into the familiar car seat, which really was just an extra layer of padding that extended up around the outside of her thighs, along her backside and back, and finally up and over her head. The section at the top had extra cushioning so she could lean her head to the side and essentially be resting it on a pillow. The straps were similar to a traditional car seat in that they came from over her shoulders and connected to a buckle between her legs.

Truth be told, Maria thought the entire thing looked a bit ridiculous, but Natasha seemed genuinely comforted by the snugness and restrictiveness of the contraption. As soon as she was buckled in she tilted her head to the side, closed her eyes, and fell asleep.

Maria looked across the seat to where Clint was still getting situated. “Is she really out that fast?”

Clint shrugged his shoulders, struggling a little with his seat belt since he couldn’t raise his arms very far due to his injuries.

“You need any help?” Maria asked, not wanting to assume, but also not wanting the boy to injure himself further.

“Nah, I got it. You should get Nat’s blanket from her bag, though. And Ducky. If she wakes up without them she might get upset,” Clint offered, finally managing to get himself buckled in and settled. Unlike Bobbi, he wasn’t as good at hiding that he was in pain, and Maria briefly thought about reaching over and patting him on the shoulder, but decided it was probably best to let him come to her if he needed comfort.

Instead she focused on digging through Natasha’s diaper bag, making sure to keep her breathing even and steady as she took the stuffed duck and baby blanket into her hands. The texture of the plushie wasn’t quite the same as her slippers, and now that she could see it up close she noticed that the color was off as well. It was stupid and dumb, but it actually made her feel a little better knowing that the duck and her deceased slippers couldn’t possibly be related.

Being careful not to wake Natasha, she gently set the toy in the girl’s arms and then draped the blanket across her lap. It was actually a really nice blanket; extremely soft to the touch, an almost militaristic shade of green, and had a silk or satin fabric border along two of the opposing edges. Maria’s Little self didn’t have a baby blanket of her own, but if she did, she could see her wanting one just like this.

_Not what you need to be thinking about right now._

_Just get in the damn car, Hill._

Maria shook her head briefly in an ill-begotten attempt to clear away the negative self talk, but it never worked and probably just made her look even weirder to Clint, who was currently watching her like a hawk. Backing her way out of the car, she firmly but quietly shut the door and then climbed into the drivers seat. She spent a few minutes adjusting the seat and the mirrors, before thinking to check in on the suspiciously silent girl next to her.

“Oh, shit, Bobbi!” Maria gasped as she finally noticed why the girl was so quiet. Bobbi’s eyes were clenched shut, her face bright red and soaked with tears. She had her lower lip pulled harshly between her teeth and her hands balled tightly into fists in her lap, the poor girl’s knuckles already growing white with the strain. She was doing absolutely everything in her power not to cry and Maria felt her heart breaking inside of her chest at the display. She knew more than anyone what it was like fighting against the urge to let it all out.

“Bobbi, sweetheart, it’s okay,” Maria quickly unbuckled herself and leant across the seat, attempting to pull the girl into a hug. Only as soon as she made contact, the child let out a sob and jerked herself in the opposite direction, pressing herself against the car door. It stung more than Maria wanted to admit, but she respected the girl’s wishes and backed off, returning to her own seat.

“Clint, do you have any ideas? I don’t want to make it worse,” Maria looked over her shoulder into the back seat where the boy was bouncing his knees in his own growing distress. At least Natasha still appeared to be asleep, but Maria knew that wouldn’t last long if she didn’t calm Bobbi down.

“Maybe give her your phone? Or get hers from her bag in the trunk?” he offered, looking everywhere but at Maria as he spoke.

“Alright, phone, phone, I can do that.” Maria reached into her pocket and pulled out her work phone. All senior level agents had the same make and model, so Bobbi should at least be familiar with it. She quickly pulled up her contact list and began scrolling through the names. “You want me to call Coulson for you? Would talking to him help?”

In the seat next to her Bobbi shook her head, another sob escaping her lips despite her best effort to keep it all in.

Maria was momentarily stumped, having thought the girl might take comfort in hearing from her handler, the same way she had while they were still up in his office. Then again, Coulson wasn’t technically _her_ handler…

“You want me to call Hand?”

To Maria’s immense relief, the girl nodded her head.

“Okay, okay, here we go,” she narrated as she scrolled further down through her contacts, finally arriving on Agent Hand. She pressed the video call button and then passed the phone to Bobbi, who had finally opened her eyes, even if it was only to look at the phone. It took a few rings before the call connected and the senior agent’s familiar red streak of hair appeared, covering almost the entire screen.

“Hand, it’s a video not a voice call. I’ve got Little Bobbi here in the car with me and she’s pretty upset,” Maria explained, watching as her fellow handler shifted the phone in front of her so her face and not just her hair appeared on the screen.

“Oh Bobbi, Pumpkin, it’s okay. I’m here,” Hand’s voice cooed from over the phone. Maria was trying hard not to be blatantly paying attention, but from where she was sitting it looked like Hand was somewhere in her office. “What’s wrong my love? Can you tell me what’s got you so upset?”

Bobbi began to nod her head, but then quickly shook it instead, glancing from the screen over to Maria then back again.

“Is that Maria there with you?” Hand asked, and Bobbi nodded tentatively. “Is it something you don’t want her to know?” Again the little girl nodded and Maria had to look away, her head beginning to pound as she tried hard not to react to the girl’s response. She knew she had a less than stellar reputation amongst the Littles, but had no clue that negative impression might have run this achingly deep.

“Okay, Pumpkin, it’s okay. I completely understand. So how about we do it this way. Maria is gonna close her eyes and cover her ears with her hands, and then you can tell me what it is that’s bothering you so much. How does that sound sweetheart?”

“O- okay…” Bobbi whispered, nodding her head as she wiped at the tears still dripping down her face with her free hand.

“Alright, that’s good sweetheart. Hill, did you hear that? Do you copy?”

Maria had a very brief moment where she wanted to protest the stupidity of this whole act, but she knew it was born out of her own selfishness and hurt, and instead just did as instructed. “Roger wilco. Eyes closed and ears covered, over.” It felt comfortable falling back on official communication procedures, as if they were on an Op instead of an innocuous civilian car ride.

A few moments passed before the girl began talking, and even though it was pointless, Maria pressed her hands tighter to her ears to try and muffle Bobbi’s words. The girl was speaking low enough that she only managed to catch every few words, but the gist of her complaint seemed to center around the fact that her ankle really, really, reeeaaaaally hurt.

Maria had known her ankle must have hurt, but apparently she was wrong in thinking that Little Bobbi was as resilient to pain as Agent Morse was.

 _Fuck_ , had she actually made the girl walk all the way through the building while in what was now apparently absolute agony? Except Bobbi had been walking fine before and after the debrief, and medical wouldn’t have released her if there was something seriously wrong with her foot, like a tear or a break. Shit, maybe she needed to bring the girl back inside and have her checked over again just to be sure?

“Hill, you there? Do you read me? Hill?”

There was a tapping at her side that brought Maria back from her downward worry spiral and she glanced over at Bobbi, the girl tentatively holding the phone out to her. She still looked upset, but no longer like she was trying to hold back tears. Taking the phone, she noticed that Hand had switched it from video to voice and so brought it to her ear.

“Loud and Clear, Hand. What’s the sit-rep?”

“I think Agent Morse may have lied to medical about her ankle. It may be more than just sprained.”

Maria turned her head to look at Bobbi, who was now looking down at her hands in her lap.

“Should I bring her back upstairs? Someone will have to come stay with the car since Romanoff is already asleep and I don’t think Barton is up for another walk across the building.”

“Negative, the less she has to walk on it right now the better. Plus medical won’t be able to do anything for her while she’s still Little. Hold on one sec.”

There was a sudden beep on the other end of the line and Maria pulled back the phone to check the screen and make sure they hadn’t been disconnected. “Hand? You still there?”

“Yes, sorry, I was just confirming something with Coulson. He said they have a pretty extensive medical kit at their apartment, and that you should have no problem finding supplies you can use to stabilize her foot incase anything actually is broken. I have to run now, but Hill, just do your best to keep her happy and off her foot. Ice cream bribes work really well, but nothing with nuts because she’s allergic.”

Maria hadn’t known that Bobbi was allergic to nuts, which only made her wonder what else she didn’t know about the Littles in her care. She was feeling less and less capable of completing this mission without irreparably harming one of them.

“If none of them are back to their adult selves by Sunday night, give Coulson or myself a call and we’ll come by. And stop worrying Hill, you’ll be fine. You got through Madripoor, you’ll get through this. Hand out.”

Maria pulled the phone away from her ear and stared down at the now terminated call screen. She wanted to be angry at the mention of the single most fucked up mission of her entire career, but rationally she understood Hands point. If she could make it through that absolute shit-storm and come out relatively sane on the other end, then she could certainly make it through this.

“Maria, I have to pee.”

Then again, on second thought, maybe not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ** I realize Roger Wilco is redundant and not used in real communications, but it's used a lot in movies and tv and just sounds better than Wilco on its own imo. But it basically means yes I understand, and yes I understand and will comply.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you guys haven't read my recently posted Peggy and Maria fic, you should probably read it before this new chapter since I do make a slight reference to something in it. It's not mandatory but it might help. :)

Doooooooooooooown. Uuuuuuuuuuuuuup. Doooooooooooown. Uuuuuuuuuuuuuup.

Maria gripped the steering wheel tighter as Bobbi pressed the button on her door for the umpteenth time, sending her passenger side window all the way down and then all the way up again. Over and over and over.

Maria wanted to scream at the girl to knock it off, but she held her tongue and instead checked in the rearview mirror to make sure Little Natasha was still asleep despite the constant bursts of wind directly against her face. She was, thank god; the girl’s head tilted to the side, her face scrunched up adorably in her sleep.

They were stuck in traffic, which honestly was to be expected since it was rush hour and they were trying to get out of DC on I-395. Which, in hindsight, was pretty fucking stupid. Except Maria wasn’t as familiar with the area to the south as she was to the north, and asking her Little passengers their opinion on the best way to get to their apartment had proven fruitless.

Because even if SHIELD _was_ technologically advanced, Maria didn’t believe for one second that they were driving an actual flying car.

So they were stuck, crawling at less than five miles an hour, down the freeway.

“Are we there yet?” Clint asked from the back seat, the boy fiddling with something in his hands that Maria couldn’t see. Whatever he was holding was continually making beeping noises and Maria sincerely hoped it was just a dumb handheld game and not a bomb.

Because surely Coulson would have made certain there were no unexploded ordnances in his vehicle before handing it off to her, right?

“Does it look like we’re there yet?” Maria sighed in exasperation as they inched along the road.

“You don’t have to be mean about it,” Clint responded dejectedly, the beeping from the backseat suddenly growing more intense.

“I’m not being mean. You have eyes Clint, you can clearly see that we’re not even out of the city yet,” Maria explained, eyeing the boy in the rear view mirror nervously. “And what the hell is that noise anyway?”

Clint seemed to perk up again at the question and held up a black tablet looking device. “It’s this new game Uncle Jasper downloaded for me. ‘Bomb Defusal Workshop Pro’. If I tap the wrong wire,” he paused, touching the tablet’s surface. “It explodes!”

An incredibly realistic explosion noise followed and Maria very nearly drove the car off the road.

“Holy fuck! Clint! Jesus Christ don’t do that!” Maria shouted back at him, one hand tightly gripping the wheel, the other on her chest to try and calm her rising panic.

_You’re not there Maria. You’re safe, in DC._

_Pull your shit together Hill._

The car was suddenly very silent, the occupant in the back seat having grown quiet and still at her outburst. Maria wanted to feel bad for yelling, but what the hell did the kid think was going to happen? Even if he knew nothing of her background, they _were_ SHIELD agents. You couldn’t just pretend that shit was blowing up and not expect someone to react accordingly.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-“ the boy trailed off, sniffling.

Maria risked a glance over her shoulder and was surprised to see that Clint looked genuinely ashamed of his behavior, and like he was honest to god trying not to cry. Even if he didn’t know about _her_ history, she knew enough about _his_ to realize she’d fucked up.

“Hey, Clint, look, I’m sorry I yelled. This whole… situation… is stressful for all of us, okay? I’m just a little on edge,” Maria explained, turning her attention back to the road ahead.

“Yeah, well, I’d say more than a _little_ ,” he replied quietly under his breath and Maria couldn’t hold back her smirk. Bratty Clint was annoying, but definitely preferable to the kicked puppy version.

“Do you want me to turn on the radio? Coulson said you get to pick the music,” she offered, reaching over and fiddling with the buttons on the console. She was familiar with the car’s make and model, but not the extravagant trim package. Her own preferred method of transportation, a beat up ’93 Honda Civic, still had a tape deck of all things.

Not that she listened to music whilst driving.

They’d been breaking the rules, listening to music the day her squad was wiped out and she never wanted to make that mistake ever again. Except the chances of driving over an IED on the freeway were probably a lot less than the chances of someone in the car having a meltdown if she didn’t find some way to occupy them.

In the end she didn’t have to do anything because music suddenly began playing, filling the car with the first few chords of 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'. Huh. Maria would _so_ not have taken Agent Barton for a closet Beatles fan.

“How did you do that, Clint? I know it wasn’t me, even if there _are_ way too many buttons on this steering wheel.” she asked.

The boy in the backseat held up his tablet again. “It’s called Bluetooth, Aunt Hill. Even Uncle Phil knows how to use Bluetooth and he’s waaaaay older than you.”

Maria couldn’t see his face but knew he was rolling his eyes from the tone of his voice. “Wait a minute, Aunt Hill? So I’m no longer the evil stepmother? And why not Aunt Maria?” she asked, a warm sensation flooding her chest at this turn of events. Was she doing this right? Was the boy coming around to her as a caretaker?

“Nah, you’re still the evil stepmom, but we need to call you something and Aunt Hill sounds so much cooler than Aunt Maria. It sounds like an ant hill. You know the place ants live? Bobbi and I like squashing them in the yard because it makes all the ants run around all funny like. Natty thinks it’s mean though so we don’t do it when she’s around.”

Maria wanted to be annoyed now at the name, but honestly that was the longest she’d heard the boy speak since they’d started this adventure, and that _had_ to mean she was doing something right. So the last thing she wanted was to be sour and for him to pick up on it and get discouraged again.

The traffic suddenly began to pick up and Maria shifted in her seat, excited they were finally moving more than five miles an hour. Bobbi was still playing with her window however and their new speed meant the wind whooshing into the car was growing more and more powerful. She was going to wake Natasha if Maria didn’t get her to stop.

“Bobbi, honey, is there a reason you’re doing that with the window?” she asked, hoping she could engage the girl in a dialogue the way she and Clint had been doing.

“Because it bothers you,” Bobbi answered simply.

Maria frowned, glancing over to the girl. It was hard to tell if she was being serious or being flippant. Did eight year olds even know how to be flippant? Maria was six in her own Little headspace and couldn’t imagine knowing or ever wanting to speak to an adult like that. Then again, her childhood hadn’t been all that different to Bobbi’s, so if the girl felt comfortable enough to be rude to her, she should probably view that as a good thing.

“Clint, that tablet of yours, what else can it do? If it can control the car’s radio, can it also control the windows?” she asked over her shoulder. They were going almost 60 now and the repeated change in air pressure from the constant opening and closing of the window was starting to give her a headache.

“Nope. But there’s a button on your door for that. The one with the X. Uncle Phil always pushes that first when Bobbi is in the car with us.”

Maria groaned, noticing the specified button amongst all the rest now that she was expressly looking for it. Why did a vehicle need so many damn buttons anyway? And why couldn’t Clint have said something when Bobbi first began playing with the window? This was obviously not an isolated incident.

Sighing at all the time and quiet wasted, Maria pressed the button with the photo of a window with an X through it and the passenger’s side window rolled all the way up and stayed there. Finally.

And then it was quiet. Blissfully quiet.

Okay, so the Beatle’s ‘Yellow Submarine’ was still playing in the background and Clint’s tablet had begun making a different beeping noise, but Maria could handle that as long as the window and the wind had stopped. Plus, according to her GPS they were now only thirty minutes or so from their destination.

They could do this. _She_ could do this. All she had to do was get them into their apartment, order some food and put on a movie, and then everything would be okay.

At least, that was the plan.


	4. Chapter 4

The rest of the trip to the apartment was uneventful. Bobbi had taken to sulking, leant against her door now that she couldn’t play with the window, but Maria was just happy she wasn’t crying. Clint had played a non-exploding tablet game for the rest of the ride and Little Natasha, bless her heart, had remained out like a light.

Now that they had arrived it was a whole other story entirely.

Bobbi couldn’t walk, so Maria had to carry her on her back like a monkey, which was ridiculously hard to do when the monkey didn’t want to hang on. Not to mention Bobbi was two inches taller than herself and weighed about the same. It made Natasha seem like an actual child in comparison.

“Bobbi, honey, please stop moving. I don’t want to accidentally drop you,” Maria pleaded as she trekked up the walkway to the Little’s apartment. The girl was squirming against her back as her legs pumped back and forth, making it hard for Maria to balance, let alone walk.

Clint was next to her with both wheelie bags in tow, and Natasha was trudging slowly after him, her diaper bag dragging on the cement path behind her. At first Maria thought the toddler was still groggy, but the further they walked, the more she realized the girl was just being petulant at having to make her own way, and with her own things.

She wished more than anything she could swap Bobbi for Natasha right about now.

“Clint, you know the code, can you go up ahead and open the door for us?” Maria asked the boy, not wanting to reveal that she didn’t actually know their apartment’s entry code. Coulson had insisted that the Little’s knew how to get in, and that it wasn’t his place to give out that kind of information. Maria could respect that.

The pre-teen rolled his eyes in exaggerated annoyance and moved to the head of the pack, setting the bags down to punch in the door code. Their apartment was a townhouse, something Maria was grateful for since this meantshe didn’t have to carry anyone up and down the stairs. Even if Bobbi’s bedroom was on the second floor, there should be enough things to do to keep her occupied on the first.

Maria hadn’t been inside very many Little’s apartments, but the few she had seemed more like toy stores and playgrounds than actual places of residence. Coulson had warned her, albeit cryptically, about what she was going to find in his charge’s place, so when she followed the boy inside and stepped into the main room she was thoroughly let down.

It looked like any other apartment she’d ever been in, with crisp clean lines and neutral colors. Where were the garishly bright colors and abundance of toys? Surely the three couldn’t live here as Littles without any actual Little gear around? As repressed as Maria was about that side of herself, she at least had a handful of play things scattered about her apartment.

“I want dooowwwnn,” Bobbi whined against her back, struggling now that they were fully inside the apartment.

Maria spotted a plain beige sofa in the room to her left and hobbled over to it, unceremoniously dumping the girl up and over her shoulder and onto the cushions. Bobbi squealed at being somersaulted over the arm of the couch, but her startlement quickly turned to delight and she giggled, staring upside-down at Maria from where she lay sprawled on her back.

“I’m glad you enjoyed that since you’re the one that taught me that move,” Maria grinned. “I bet it feels a lot better on the couch cushions than it does on the sparring mats, huh?”

Bobbi nodded, still smiling brightly up at her.

It made Maria’s heart swell to know she might have finally found something she could connect to the girl with. Except with the girl’s bad ankle, there wouldn’t be much opportunity for rough housing. “You good for a moment while I go see to your siblings?”

Once the girl nodded, Maria turned and headed back into the hallway where she’d left the other two. She could see the suitcases on the ground, but neither Little were in sight. “Natasha? Clint? Where did you guys go?” she called out, heading further into the apartment. There was a staircase on her right that she ignored, figuring neither of the two were in any shape to go up it just yet.

Past the staircase was a room with an open doorway, and peeking her head inside Maria realized it was the kitchen. It was moderately sized, and very sleek and modern looking. As if it were designed directly from one of those catalogues she’d seen at Home Depot. It definitely didn’t feel like a kitchen a trio of Littles would have picked out.

After the kitchen was a closed door, behind which Maria could hear an assortment of suspicious shuffling and whispering. “You guys in there?” she called, knocking on the door. The sound of a toilet flushing responded back, answering Maria’s unspoken question as to what room it was. “Clint, are you in there with Nat? Are you helping her get changed?”

“Duh, Aunt Hill! What do you _think_ we’re doing?!” the boy’s voice shouted back, sounding entirely naive of any alternate reasons one would lock themselves in the bathroom with their significant other. Not that Maria had to worry about that; as a biological rule even the oldest Littles were still pre-pubescent. If it had been Agent’s Barton and Romanoff locked in the bathroom she might have had cause to worry.

“Do you need any help?” Maria called through the door, not sure what she was offering, but as the only adult she felt it was something she was supposed to do. Coulson had said Little Natasha could take care of her business on her own, so maybe they were just tending to each others post mission wounds? Well shit.

Sex she wasn’t worried about, but minor surgery? Sutures? What if one of them was more injured than they’d originally let on? Like Bobbi with her ankle?

Maria banged on the door again, reaching for the doorknob when suddenly it twisted on its own and the door swung inwards. Clint was standing across from her, his face scrunched up in confusion at her. “Geez Louise, if you had to go that bad we have another bathroom upstairs,” he explained.

“What? No, I just thought-“ Maria shook her head, knowing now she was worrying for no reason. She stepped back to let the pair exit the bathroom, eyeing them quickly to see if either had any new bandages or if anything else was different. Clint looked exactly the same, but Little Natasha was now sans pants, her diaper peaking out from beneath the hem of her SHIELD t-shirt.

“You’re really weird Aunt Hill. Like, even weirder than Uncle Garrett, and he’s reeeaaally weird,” Clint insisted as he stepped around Maria.

Natasha nodded her head, following her brother into the hallway. “Cweepy Gawwett.”

Maria wrinkled her nose at being compared to John Garrett. She’d only ever interacted with the agent as an adult, but could totally understand the Little’s dislike of him. Some Bigs were just inherently “creepy uncle” types, even if they’d never actually done anything to warrant the moniker.

She really, really hoped John Garrett hadn't done anything to warrant it.

“So Coulson said you guys had a monster first aid kit? Do you keep it in here or the bathroom upstairs?” she asked, needing to change the subject in her own mind.

“If by ‘monster’ you mean a really big one for humans then yeah, it’s under the sink,” Clint, the little shit, replied back.

Maria stuck her tongue at the boy before entering the bathroom, finding the kit where he’d said and grabbing it. The others had already begun making their way back down the hallway so she followed, stopping once again in the living room, but this time around the front of the couch. She dropped the first aid kit on the carpet and looked at Bobbi questioningly.

“You going to behave and let me wrap that ankle? Or am I going to have to toss you around a bit more first?”

Bobbi looked for a moment like she was genuinely considering her answer but then shook her head, smiling devilishly as she lifted up her bad leg. She was still laying lengthwise on her back so Maria got down onto her knees and began to pull off first the girl’s shoe and then her sock.

“Holy shit, Bobbi. There’s no way that this isn’t broken,” Maria gasped as she unwound the ace bandage medical had placed on the girl. Her ankle was puffy and swollen, her skin more shades of red and purple than Maria had names for. She didn’t see any obvious bumps or protrusions of bone, but this had to be more than just a simple sprain.

“The bad man hit me with a baseball bat,” Bobbi explained solemnly, her upbeat demeanor fading as she lifted her head, looking at her own injury sadly. “Natty bit him on the butt and he got mad.”

Maria frowned at this, looking over to the adjacent couch where Clint and Natasha had curled up on. The little girl was laying across her older brother’s lap, her fingers held in front of her face. She seemed to be inspecting them; almost like the toddler equivalent of filing her nails.

“She bit him on the back, not the butt. Then he hit her,” Clint said, anger rising in his voice as he looked down at his baby sister. That probably explained the cut above Natasha’s eye. “I kicked him in the nuts so he would leave them alone.”

“Yeah, and it worked _dummy_ ,” Bobbi huffed, obviously having the same feelings about Clint sacrificing himself as Agent Morse did.

Maria found it heartbreaking, but also fascinating to hear the three talk about the mission. Generally speaking, after the initial debrief, in which the Little agents were required to attend but discouraged from participating in, she had always taken off back to her office or wherever else she was needed. She wasn’t a handler so never had any reason to sit and chat with a Little like this.

“I’m sorry the bad man hurt you guys. I was with Coulson, Uncle Phil, while it was happening and want you all to know that you were very, very brave. We’re all very proud of you guys for being strong and for protecting each other,” Maria explained, looking between the three and hoping they understood she meant this genuinely and not as just a platitude from the Deputy Director.

Clint shrugged his shoulders, seemingly uncomfortable at the praise. Which was such a strange thing for Maria to see since Agent Barton seemed to bask in being told how amazing he was.

“I don’t want to go to the hospital.”

Bobbi’s whimpering brought Maria’s attention back to the girl and she shook her head, pulling a few things out of the first aid kit. “I won’t take you to the hospital sweetheart, as long as you promise to stay off this foot until you get big again. Remember what Aunt Victoria said? If it starts to hurt really bad and you don’t think you can stand it, I can give her a call and she will come by and take you to medical.”

So that wasn’t quite what the other agent had said, but Maria understood that’s what had been implied. Unless it was a matter of life or death, SHIELD doctors couldn’t perform serious medical procedures on an agent while they were in their Little headspace without their medical proxy there to give permission. Agent Hand was Bobbi’s proxy, just as Agent Coulson was Natasha and Clint’s.

“I’ll be good, I promise,” Bobbi looked so sincere, so earnest in her statement that it made Maria wonder if there was some other reason the girl didn’t like doctors. She’d have to file that one away for later.

“I believe you,” Maria replied, smiling what she hoped was reassuringly. “Can you sit up for me though? It will be easier for me to assess your foot and wrap you back up.”

Bobbi nodded, pulling herself into a sitting position and holding her ankle out for Maria to take.

Maria wasn’t a medic, but she had enough field training from her time in the army to understand what she had to do. She first made sure all of the girl’s toes had feeling in them and that she could wriggle them, even if it made her whimper to do so. “That’s good sweetheart, you’re doing so good,” she encouraged, gently running her fingers along the enflamed skin to feel for any obvious broken bones.

Satisfied that the girl’s foot wasn’t in immediate danger, Maria finished by wrapping it tightly and securely with a bandage. “There you go, all done now,” she told the girl, sitting back on her own heels as she watched Bobbi try and flex her foot experimentally. “You’re still going to need to keep it elevated and iced. And I’ll have to help you get to and from the bathroom.”

Bobbi blanched at this but didn’t argue. “And ice cream?” she asked instead, batting her eyes hopefully.

Maria laughed and nodded, pulling herself up off the floor and onto her feet. “Yes, lots and lots of ice cream.”

“And pizza!” Clint shouted, interjecting himself now that the topic had turned to food.

“Peessa!” Natasha echoed, her thumb having found it’s way into her mouth while Maria had been tending to Bobbi.

Maria dug her hand into her pocket, pulling out the pacifier she’d placed there when Natasha had nearly dropped it in the parking garage. The little girl’s eyes lit up when she saw it and she stretched out her unoccupied hand, making grasping motions with her fingers.

“Eww, lemme have it first,” Clint insisted, snatching it from Maria before Natasha could take it. He looked at it critically and then popped the rubber end into his mouth, sucking for a few seconds before pulling it out again. “Here ya go Natty.” He handed it down to the child in his lap, grinning as Natasha immediately popped it in her mouth.

Maria took a step back, watching the two with an adoring smile on her face. “Alright, so we’re all agreed on pizza for dinner?” she asked the room.

“And ice cream!”

Maria laughed. “Yes, and ice cream for dessert?”

There was a chorus of “yesses” and Maria fished into her other pocket, taking out her work phone. After a quick google search she was able to find a suitable delivery service and ordered the agreed upon items. Once that was done she looked down at the three happy faces staring up at her and smiled back at them.

For the first time since their adventure had started, Maria wasn’t worried about messing it all up.


	5. Chapter 5

Maria finished off her second slice of stuffed crust, black olive and mushroom pizza, eyeing a third but deciding against it. She licked at her fingers a moment, trying to get the last of the buttery garlic sauce from her digits before grabbing a napkin and wiping her hands like the adult she was supposed to be.

Bobbi had no such compunction about using her tongue to clean herself and Maria watched in amusement as the girl chased after some marinara sauce that was dripping down her arm towards her elbow. She was the only one out of the four that was actually seated on the couch, the rest of them sitting Indian-style on the floor around the coffee table.

Before the food had arrived Clint had insisted on covering the carpet and the couch with towels so they didn’t drop anything and stain the furniture. Maria had suggested they just eat at the dining table but apparently they didn’t have one, just a breakfast bar attached to the kitchen counter. Since there was no way Bobbi was going to be able to sit on a stool with her bad foot, they’d opted for a makeshift picnic on the floor instead.

Natasha was still eating, Clint having cut her pizza into little pieces that she was using her fingers to pick up and place into her mouth. Or trying to place into her mouth. Every now and then she’d “accidentally” drop a piece and watch in delight as it tumbled down her shirt and into her lap, smearing tomato sauce along the way.

Maria had tried sticking a napkin in the neckline of her shirt but Clint had waved her efforts away, saying it was useless because Natasha would just find another way to make a mess of herself. At least this way most of the food stayed on the girl and her clothes, and not on the ground.

It was strange that the three seemed so concerned about not getting anything on the carpet or couch. If Maria didn’t know any better she’d almost think this wasn’t their apartment and they were trying not to leave any evidence of their presence behind. Except that couldn’t possibly be the case. Coulson had given her the address, and Clint had known the code to get in. 

There was also the nagging curiosity about why there were no toys or Little gear around. Natasha was a toddler, yet there was no high chair in the kitchen or sippy cups in the cupboard. No bottles or face wipes or anything else a two year old might need. The girl had these things in her diaper bag, so Maria knew she definitely used them.

“You guys _do_ live here, right?” she finally asked, trying to sound nonchalant about the whole thing and not awaken their own suspicion.

It didn’t work, and the three shared a brief look between themselves before all nodding at the same time.

“Of course we do. Why would you even ask that?” Clint questioned, keeping his eyes on the breadstick he was drowning in his dipping sauce. Out of the three, Clint had managed to stay the cleanest with just a few drips of sauce on his shirt.

Maria shrugged her shoulders, tossing her napkin on her plate and leaning back against the foot of the couch. “It just seems strange you guys are so worried about not making a mess. If this really was your place then you must have eaten here as Littles before, right?”

Clint gave up on his breadstick and began peeling the label off his bottle of soda. “We have, yeah. We’re just not _supposed_ to…” he answered, trailing off his sentence as Bobbi grunted and wagged her hand at him, her mouth full of pizza so she couldn’t properly talk.

“Clint! No!” the girl exclaimed once she’d swallowed what she’d been chewing. Maria noticed her eyes were wide with what almost looked like fear. What the hell?

“Okay, seriously, who’s apartment is this? Is this Coulson’s apartment?” Maria frowned at the trio, feeling a bit hurt that she’d obviously been lied to.

“It IS ours,” Clint insisted, glaring at Bobbi as the girl set her pizza down on the plate in her lap and crossed her arms over her chest, hugging herself. “We live here, all three of us. Just not like this.”

“Like ‘this’? Like what?” Maria couldn’t help mirror Bobbi’s posture and crossed her own arms over her chest.

“Like _this_ ,” Clint gestured to himself and then to Natasha next to him. “Little. We don’t live here when we’re Little, alright?” He pushed his soda further across the coffee table and sat back, attempting to cross his own arms but giving up as it put too much strain on his bruised ribs.

Maria still didn’t understand. “Then why did I bring you here? Where do you live when you’re Little?”

Clint’s eyes shifted to the right and then back again quickly, as if catching himself. Maria followed with her own eyes where he’d been about to look, spotting a door along the wall that she’d just assumed led to a bedroom. There was a hand written sign taped to it that read ‘KEEP OUT’.

“In there? Is that your Little playroom?” she asked.

Before Clint could respond, Natasha nodded. “P’ay room,” she confirmed around the sauce and cheese in her mouth.

“Natty, don’t. We were going to wait,” Bobbi whined. The girl was sitting lengthwise on the couch with her back against the arm and her ankle propped up on a pillow. The bag of ice that was resting on her foot was nearly all melted now. Maria could see the purple tinge of the girl’s toes from where she was sitting.

“Alright, enough. You, explain, now,” Maria pointed at Clint. She wanted to get to the bottom of this quickly so she could check Bobbi’s foot again.

Clint looked uneasy for a few moments but then sighed, nodding his head. “Since we were prolly going to tell you anyway,” he paused and looked at his sisters, “are we all agreed that we can tell Aunt Hill about the super secret clubhouse?”

Super secret clubhouse? Maria sat up a little straighter, unable to dampen the curiosity flowing through her.If Clint didn’t spill the beans in the next few seconds she was going to get up and go look for herself.

“Yess!” Nat shouted, slapping a hand on her plate of food in excitement. Pizza sauce went flying, splattering her directly in the face. She sat stunned for a moment and then giggled, reaching up and wiping it away with her fingers before popping them in her mouth.

“Fine, may as well. I didn’t want to sleep over here tonight anyway,” Bobbi answered, pushing her plate off her lap even though it still had half a slice of pizza on it. Maria grabbed it before it could tumble to the floor and set it on the coffee table.

“Alright, so, we have _two_ apartments. This one and our super secret one,” Clint explained, wiping his hands on his shirt before slowly pulling himself up to his feet. “We put a door between them so we didn’t have to keep going outside.”

Maria’s eyebrows rose at this. Two apartments? So not just a play room, but a play apartment? Holy shit. She uncrossed her legs and hoisted herself up, standing next to the couch where Bobbi still sat, looking marginally uncomfortable. If it was at the pain in her foot or the fact their secret was being revealed, Maria didn’t know.

“Come on Miss Grumpy Face, you said it yourself you didn’t want to sleep in here,” Maria teased, reaching a hand out to the girl. She was dismayed Bobbi had gone back to being unhappy about her presence and briefly considered hoisting the girl up over her shoulder fireman style to try and get her to laugh again.

Bobbi huffed at the name calling but reached out to take Maria’s hand, letting the woman pull her onto her good foot.

“P’ay room! P’ay room!” Nat had gotten to her feet too and was bouncing on her toes, clapping her hands in excitement. The pizza particles that had landed in her lap were dripping down her thighs now and Maria groaned, realizing the girl was definitely going to need a bath.

Returning her attention to Bobbi, Maria gave the girl her back, prompting her to hop on again. The girl did, this time wrapping her arms tightly around Maria’s neck. “Good girl, I’ll put you down as soon as we find a safe place for you.”

Bobbi grunted her response but didn’t squirm, allowing Maria to grip her legs beneath her knees as she straightened up.

“After you Clint,” Maria nodded at the boy, motioning with her head to lead the way.

Clint took Natasha’s hand in his and lead the group towards the door. As they got closer Maria could see a second, smaller sign beneath the first that read ‘No Bigs Allowed!’ and below that a third that said ‘Except Uncle Phil’. All three signs were written in red crayon, and a few of the letters were drawn backwards. Maria honestly didn’t know which of the three had made them since she was pretty sure adult Clint was dyslexic. At least, that’s the impression she got after years of reading his chicken scratch mission reports.

The boy turned the knob on the door and pulled it open, stepping back so Natasha could get through first and then Maria and Bobbi. Following after he quickly closed the door behind him and flipped the switch on the wall, flooding the room with light and giving Maria her first glimpse of what she could only describe as ‘Little Heaven’.

They were in a living room similar to the one they’d just left, but instead of muted beige and white, the walls were painted in alternating shades of blue and purple, colors not dissimilar to Agent Barton’s and Morse’s more theatrical SHIELD uniforms. Not their every day uniforms, but the ones they wore when _what_ they were was more important to the enemy than _who_ they were.

Because as ridiculous as it sounded, nothing shocked and subsequently lowered a terrorist’s expectations better than a handful of agents in brightly colored spandex and face masks. The element of surprise indeed.

Maria momentarily forgot about the girl on her back as she looked around the room, her eyes traveling over the various hand painted pictures of animals and flowers, some looking professionally done, others like a toddler had finger painted them directly onto the wall.

Opposite from where they stood was a giant red couch with purple and blue pillows and Maria started towards it, keeping her eyes on the green shag carpet so she wouldn’t step on any of the numerous toys laying around. Maria had never seen so many toys outside of a toy store and her six year old self was more than a little jealous.

Maybe this was a bad idea after all. If anything was going to get her to drop into her Little headspace, being surrounded by the world’s most awesome and temping toys was definitely going to do it.

“Holy shit are those My Little Ponies?” she exclaimed, spotting a pink plastic stable to her left with at least two dozen brightly colored ponies in and around it. They looked like the original 1980’s ones too, not the ugly and deformed current versions. Oh god, this wasn’t going to end well. She was going to drop, and then she was going to drop Bobbi, and then she was mostly likely going to be fired.

_For fuck’s sake, keep it together Hill._

_You’ve resisted temptation before, you can do it again._

But.. but ponies...

“Aunt Hill, are you okay?” Clint was by her side now, poking her in the arm to try and get her attention away from the toys. “If you drop Bobbi I’m going to wake up and punch you.”

The threat, as ridiculous as it was, snapped Maria out of her head and back into reality. The girl on her back was squirming now and she walked the last few feet to the couch and set her onto it, much more gently than she’d done the last time.

“Yeah, sorry, I was just…” she turned and looked again at the ponies, frowning as Natasha had at some point dropped to her knees and was now crawling over to them. “I had those as a kid and it brought back some memories.” Which was technically true. She’d had My Little Ponies as a child, at least before her father had gotten mad at her one day and thrown them all out.

_Bad girls don’t get toys, Maria!_

_Bad girls don’t get to have fun!_

A set of large hands were suddenly on her arms, pushing her to sit down, and Maria resisted the instinct to cry out and struggle away. It was Clint moving her, she knew this, but his hands brought back another set of memories and she shuddered as she allowed him to place her on the couch.

“You look all white, Aunt Hill. Stay here, I’m going to get you some juice,” Clint instructed before disappearing out of the room and towards what Maria assumed was the kitchen. She felt so stupid and so exposed and pulled her arms around herself, staring at her knees as she tried to breathe through the rising panic. She was definitely going to drop if she let herself panic.

“We can go back in the other apartment if you want. I can sleep in my adult bed, I don’t mind,” Bobbi offered and Maria relaxed a little, shaking her head.

“No, no, it’s fine. I’m just being stupid. I’ll be fine in a minute,” Maria reassured, though she was secretly touched that Bobbi had suggested it. The girl had just been tortured and had a broken foot for her troubles, yet she was willing to be uncomfortable if it meant making her feel better.

“Bad feelings aren’t stupid Aunt Maria. And bad feelings because of bad memories are even less stupider.” Bobbi responded, sounding much wiser than Maria had pegged her eight year old self to be. Though maybe that was just her projecting her own shortcomings onto the girl since their Little selves were so similar in age.

Clint suddenly reappeared in front of her, holding out a juice box. The front of his shirt was wet and Maria eyed him curiously as she took the offered drink.

“I tried squeezing one into a cup for you and it exploded, so you have to drink it like this,” he explained, rubbing the back of his neck in both apology and embarrassment. Maria felt herself calming down just at his thoughtfulness.

“Thank you Clint, that was sweet of you to try,” Maria told him sincerely as she took the juice box from the boy. Ripping off the plastic straw, she fumbled for a moment with getting it out of the wrapper, but then succeeded and pressed the sharp end into the foil hole, a few drops of apple juice escaping out around it. Not caring anymore about appearances, she used her tongue to lick up the droplets before they could drip off the box and onto her hand.

“Why don’t you go get cleaned up and changed? And maybe grab some clothes for the girls? Although I think Little Miss Dropsalot over there is going to need a bath before bed,” Maria instructed before taking a proper sip of her juice box. It was the same brand she kept at home and that soothed her more than it probably should.

“Natty and I take baths together,” Bobbi spoke up as Clint turned and headed back down the hall towards the bedrooms. “She gets scared of the water so it helps if I sit with her.”

Maria frowned a little at this, turning her gaze to the toddler across the room. Natasha was still by the plastic stable, but all the ponies were now missing. “Horsies go s’eepy!” the toddler explained when she noticed Maria looking her way. The girl had placed all the ponies into the stable so they were out of Maria’s line of sight. “Nigh’ nigh’ horsies!”

“Aw, that’s right. Night night horsies,” Maria echoed, nodding her head as she tried not to show how touched she was that Natasha had picked up on her distress and gone and done something about it. Maybe that was what Coulson meant by the toddler having a little bit of adult Natasha floating around in her head? There was no way a two year old would have been able to figure that out on their own.

“You did such a good job putting the horsies to bed. How about we get you and your sister cleaned up so you can put on pajamas and get ready for your own bed?” Maria asked, shifting the now empty juice box back and forth between her hands as she watched the toddler’s warring facial expressions. After a few seconds the girl seemed to make up her mind and nodded, crawling back over to where she and Bobbi sat.

“Are you okay with taking a bath before bedtime?” Maria asked the girl next to her, part of her hoping she would disagree so they could scrap the whole thing entirely. Maria really didn’t want to be responsible for giving either of them a bath, even if they so obviously needed it.

Bobbi shrugged. “Yeah, I s’pose. You have to carry me though. The big bathtub is all the way on the other side of our bedroom.”

Maria sighed internally but nodded, forcing a smile onto her face. She could do this. She just had to get the girls into the tub and hand them some washcloths and soap and let them have at it. Bobbi was eight, so there was no reason the girl couldn’t wash herself. And even if Natasha was a baby, adult Natasha would hopefully pick up on her discomfort again and take care of herself, like she did the rest of her bathroom business.

So it really shouldn’t be that bad, right?

Yeah, who was she kidding. This was going to be a disaster.


	6. Chapter 6

When Bobbi had said that Natasha didn’t like baths, what she’d actually meant was Natasha was absolutely terrified of baths. The girl was physically trembling and almost to the point of tears as Maria led her down the hallway. Bobbi was once again on her back, so she couldn’t do much more for Natasha than speak softly and reassuringly to her as they walked.

“We can go through here,” Bobbi instructed, pointing to a door on their left side. “It goes directly into the big bathroom.”

Maria followed to where the girl was pointing and pushed open the door, leading them into the largest damn bathroom she’d ever seen outside of a mansion. It was easily four times as big as her own ensuite back home. In fact, it might have even been bigger than her actual bedroom.

“Holy cow, I make more than the three of you combined and I _definitely_ can’t afford an apartment like this, let alone two of them,” she murmured incredulously as she looked around the gigantic room. “Is your other one this big too?” She walked past the lengthy double sink counter towards one of the two toilets and set Bobbi down on the closed lid.

“Nah, it’s only big ‘cause it used to be _two_ bathrooms. Uncle Phil and Uncle Felix helped make it into one big one so we could all share, just like our bedroom,” Bobbi explained, flexing her foot tenderly. Maria could see the purplish tint to her toes had started to fade a little. It was going to be interesting trying to get the girl into the tub without getting her foot wet.

“Ducky?” Natasha’s voice interrupted and Maria turned to see where the girl was pointing. There was a large red basket of toys shoved underneath a second counter on the opposite wall. Walking over to her, Maria crouched down and pulled out the basket.

“You want some toys in the bath with you?” she asked, picking up a yellow and blue rubber ducky and showing it to the toddler. Natasha had her thumb in her mouth now so simply nodded and grabbed the toy with her free hand, turning and crossing three feet towards the tub and chucking it in. The plastic toy made a comical squeak as it hit the fiberglass side of the jacuzzi tub before falling unseen into its depths.

“Nice aim, kiddo,” Maria praised, hoping if she gave Natasha something to think about other than the bath itself, she’d relax. “Why don’t you toss a few more in while I get the water going and help your sister out of her clothes?”

Natasha didn’t respond verbally, but instead walked back to the basket and grabbed another toy, this time a blue whale, and then walked back a few feet towards the tub and threw it in. She was still a good six or seven feet away from the tub, but didn’t seem interested in going any closer just yet.

Leaving the girl to her activity, Maria got up and moved to inspect the tub itself. She’d been in something similar once on an Op, but she hadn’t been the one in charge of turning it on. She frowned as she looked to Bobbi for help. The girl rolled her eyes at her and pointed to the handle on the wall. “You keep doing that and your eyes are going to stay that way,” Maria told her, laughing when Bobbi rolled her eyes a second time in response.

Leaning over the edge of the jacuzzi, Maria turned the handle towards the red arrow and then stuck her hand beneath the spigot to make sure the water coming out wasn’t going to be too hot for the girls. Satisfied with the temperature she spotted a bottle of bubble bath on one of the shelves and picked it up, turning to show it to Bobbi and Natasha.

“Bubbles? Yay or Nay?” she asked, swishing the bottle in her hand.

“Whichever one means ‘heck yeah!’” Bobbi replied, starting to perk up again at the prospect of a bubble jacuzzi.

The rational part of Maria’s brain realized that putting bubble bath in a spa jacuzzi was basically asking for trouble, but the repressed Little side of her was desperately curious to see how big the bubbles would get. As long as the jets didn’t turn on it shouldn’t get too ridiculous, right? Unscrewing the cap, she poured a decent amount into the rapidly filling tub and then set the bottle aside again.

Within moments a layer of bubbles began to form atop the rising water and Maria grinned in her own secret delight. As long as she didn’t fill the tub too high it would be alright, she reasoned. Besides, the bottle wouldn’t have been sitting there already half empty if it was going to be an issue.

“I think you put too much in,” Bobbi cautioned from her seat still on the toilet lid.

Maria rolled her eyes this time. “I’m sorry, I thought _you_ were the eight year old and _I_ was the adult. Don’t you trust me to know what I’m doing?”

Bobbi wasted no time in responding, “Nope.”

Maria stuck her tongue at the girl, which got her to giggle. “Alright alright, do you at least trust me to take another look at that foot? I doubt we’re going to get you cleaned up without getting it wet, so we may as well unwrap it and wrap it back up again afterwards. How does that sound?”

Bobbi chewed on her bottom lip for a moment, looking down at her foot and then over to the bath, before returning her gaze to Maria. “Sounds okay, I ‘spose.” She lifted her foot a little and Maria shifted from her seat on the edge of the tub to kneel down in front of the girl, taking her foot gently in her hands.

“How does it feel? Does it hurt? Did the ice help any?” Maria asked, glancing to her left as a tiny splash caught her attention. Natasha was still throwing toys into the tub.

“You ever break your foot Aunt Hill?” Bobbi inquired, raising an eyebrow questioningly.

Maria shook her head. She’d broken her arm once when she was a child, but the pain of the break hadn’t stuck in her memory as much as the fear surrounding how it had gotten broken. “Nope, sprained it once or twice, but never as dramatic, or as technicolor as this.”

Bobbi wrinkled her nose at Maria’s response, almost as if she were disappointed in her answer. “Well, broken feet _hurt,_ Aunt Hill, so you don’t have to keep asking me if it hurts, because it’s broken so _obviously_ it hurts.” The girl rolled her eyes at the word ‘obviously’, crossing her arms over her chest in a huff.

“Wow, you are one moody Little girl, has anyone ever told you that?” Maria laughed at the affronted look Bobbi was now giving her.

“Not to my face,” Bobbi quipped back, and Maria laughed a little harder. That was such an Agent Morse thing to say.

“You’re adorable Bobbi. Don’t ever change,” Maria told her sincerely, shaking her head with residual laughter as she began to unwrap the girl’s foot.

The room settled into a comfortable silence as Maria worked, broken only by the occasional splash of a toy being tossed by the still thankfully preoccupied toddler. She was almost done getting the final bandage off when there was another splash, this one much, much louder. It was definitely not a toy.

“Natasha!” Maria swiveled in her spot, watching in horror as the toddler’s upper body disappeared beneath the surface of the water, her bare legs flying up behind her as gravity slid her further into the tub. It was only about 3/4 of the way full, but since it was a jacuzzi it was still deep enough for the girl’s body to vanish fully into the bubble thick water.

Heart hammering in her chest, Maria was instantly on her feet, reaching into the tub and grabbing whatever part of the girl she could find. Snagging Natasha’s arm she yanked upwards, bringing the toddler back above the water as quickly as she had fallen beneath it. However, those few moments of being submerged was enough to cause her to start screaming at the top of her lungs.

“Nat! Natasha!” Bobbi shouted, suddenly by Maria’s side despite her bad foot. Maria was trying to maneuver the girl out of the tub but she’d begun struggling and kicking her legs, making it difficult to keep a grip on her.

“It’s okay Natasha! It’s okay, I’ve got you!” Maria tried to reassure. She had to step one leg into the tub to keep her balance so they both didn’t topple back into the water. Natasha was screaming even louder now, her arms twirling as she twisted, sending bubbles and water in all directions.

“What the hell is- Natasha!” Clint suddenly burst into the bathroom, though his voice sounded more like Agent Barton’s than Little Clint’s. “What did you do to her!?”

Maria was still trying to get the toddler to stop struggling so she could maneuver them both out of the tub without causing any further injures. “I didn’t do anything, she fell in!” she explained defensively. She may have had her back to the girl, but she’d had no idea she might try to climb in on her own. Wasn’t she supposed to be afraid of baths?

“Fuck, give her to me, quick!” Clint, no, definitely Agent Barton ordered, stepping up to the tub and wrapping his arms around Natasha’s upper body, hoisting her out of Maria’s grasp and over the edge of the tub. He let out a pained grunt as his bruised ribs no doubt protested the action.

“Clint, what do we do? Should we bring her into the room?” Bobbi, or rather, Agent Morse asked in her own growing panic.

Maria watched in stunned silence as the two formerly Little, now fully adult agents brought Natasha down to the floor, Morse immediately sitting behind her, wrapping her arms around their still Little friend’s torso. Barton had dropped to his knees and was straddling both of their legs, his hands on Natasha’s face as he tried to wipe as much of the remaining bubbles and water from her eyes, nose, and mouth.

“It’s okay Nat, please come back to us. We’re here with you, it’s just Clint and Bobbi. We’re your friends, you know us. You’re safe. Please don’t panic.” Barton reassured in a comforting but also affirming tone.

Morse was murmuring something in the still screaming girl’s ear, but Maria was too far away to make out what it was.

“What should I do? How can I help?” she asked, climbing out of the tub now and nearly slipping in the puddle that had overtaken most of the room. “Barton, what can I do?” Maria dropped down to her knees next to the trio but didn’t reach out to the still howling toddler, not wanting to make it worse.

“You can leave. Just go, get out of here Hill! We’ve got this,” Barton responded angrily and Maria recoiled, feeling her own eyes well up with tears at the vehemence in his tone. This wasn’t her fault! It was an accident! Surely they understood that she wasn’t to blame here?

“We’re fine, Hill, but you need to go. Take Coulson’s car. We’ve got our own in the garage,” Morse added, not bothering to even look at her boss as she continued trying to calm her terrified friend.

“But your foot, you were standing on it,” Maria protested weakly, starting to pull herself up as it became obvious she was no longer welcome there.

“Fuck my foot! Just get the hell out of here, now!” Morse shouted back, definite anger in her voice now as well.

Maria didn’t need any more encouragement and got fully to her feet, then awkwardly shuffled and slipped her way back towards the door leading to the hallway. Once through it she paused and glanced back over her shoulder, but the occupants still in the bathroom weren’t paying her any attention, too caught up in whatever the fuck was happening with Natasha.

Because something was definitely happening with her, and it wasn’t just a two year old being scared of bath time.

Pushing that can of worms aside, Maria raced down the hallway and threw open the door to the first apartment. Stumbled into the living room, she began looking for the keys she’d left on the table. She was soaked from the waist down, trailing water and bubbles behind her, but she didn’t care. They wanted her out of their apartment, so she’d listen to them.

She’d fucked this up enough, she didn’t need to make it worse by lingering.

Finding and grabbing her keys and then her duffle, she hoisted the bag up over her shoulder and made a beeline for the front door, not even bothering to lock it on her way out.


	7. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reesachan had asked if Maria was okay to drive and I realized I needed to properly end this story, so here, have an epilogue lol

It was almost two hours later when Maria finally began to calm down. She was currently parked at a Wendy’s a few blocks from her agent’s apartment, having felt she was in no condition to drive all the way back to her place just yet. 

She wasn’t going to drop, that much she knew. Normally being yelled at was an instant trigger for her, but in this case it had been the opposite. Her Little side felt far away and dormant, almost like it was hiding from the shit storm she had gotten herself into. That had never happened before and it was more than a little unnerving.

Even though it was going on ten o'clock and the fast food joint would be closing in an hour, she hadn’t yet made an attempt to leave her vehicle. She wasn’t really hungry, but her bladder had been prodding her from the inside for the last twenty minutes and the absolute last thing she wanted to do was piss herself while sitting in Coulson’s car.    


As soon as the thought crossed her mind, the cell phone in her front pocket began to buzz and vibrate and she squirmed as little as possible as she pulled it out. She checked the caller ID and groaned, accepting the call even though she really didn’t want to be having a conversation about what had happened with the Littles right now.

“Agent Hill,” she sighed into the phone, fairly certain she could  _hear_  the frown on Agent Coulson’s face through the cellular network.

“Rough night?” he asked, sounding concerned, but also like he already knew the answer.

“You could say that. I assume you’re calling because Agent Barton told you what happened?” Maria began to drag her finger down the edge of the steering wheel, following the little hills and valleys in the expensive leather. 

“You could say that,” he parroted back at her, a little bit of amusement evident in his voice.

Maria sighed, scrunching her face as she tried to focus on the conversation and not on how she felt about what had transpired earlier. She wasn’t going to drop, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to cry.

“So you know I fucked everything up, right? I nearly got a Toddler killed. I probably let an eight year old permanently damage her foot. And who knows how much further Clint injured himself when he pulled Natasha from the tub,“ she lamented, leaning her head back against the headrest as she waited for confirmation of her screw ups.

Except instead of a response there was a prolonged silence, and after a few seconds Maria pulled the phone from her ear to check and make sure that they were still connected. They were.

“Sir?” she asked, her heart-rate picking up as her mind raced, trying to figure out why he hadn’t responded yet. Had something even worse happened after she’d left? Natasha had seemed alright, just scared and distressed, but not in any physical danger. 

Only, what if she’d been wrong? What if she’d done it again? Ran away while others needed her?  _Fuck!_

_Please don't drop. Please don't drop. Please don't drop._

“Am I speaking to Agent Hill, or Maria right now?” Coulson finally asked, pulling her from the brink of a dangerous downward spiral. Her Little self didn't feel so far away anymore.    


“What? I’m not sure I know what you mean, sir,” Maria responded, her mouth suddenly feeling like a desert as she smacked her lips together and struggled to swallow. What did he mean by that? Could he possibly know?    


“Well, Agent Hill wouldn’t have started this dialogue by telling me how badly she fucked up. She’d have given me the sit-rep and inquired about further instructions. Twenty year old newly recruited Maria, however…” There was an air of fondness in his voice and Maria suddenly realized he was simply commenting on her lack of professionalism, and not eluding to knowledge of her secret identity.

Because he was right. Tonight felt a lot like her first few months at SHIELD as a freshly recruited baby agent under Phil Coulson’s tutelage. She cringed at the memory of how often he’d needed to remind her not to berate herself and her decisions out-loud for others to hear. Back then she hadn’t been aiming for a leadership position in the organization, but nonetheless he’d drilled the notion into her that SHIELD agents tended to have better than average memories, and how she presented herself now could effect how others saw her in the future.

Maybe the rumors were true and Coulson really was ‘otherworldly’ in his uncanny ability to predict the future. He’d certainly seemed to know years before the fact that she would be considered for the Deputy Director position. And hindsight being what it is, she could easily categorize the years spent with him as her SO as ‘tactical grooming’.

“Are you gonna tell on me sir? Get me demoted back down to grunt?” she asked, hoping humor was evident in her tone and not just her words. She didn’t need Coulson questioning her ability as a leader right now, even if it was coming from a place of friendship and not authority.

Coulson laughed on the other end of the line and Maria actually smiled for the first time since she’d fled the apartment. 

“If I was going to tattle on you to Fury I’d have done so immediately after Barton’s call. Natasha’s fine, by the way. Still Little, and currently napping in her crib with Morse. You didn’t damage any of them, Maria, so you can stop mentally flagellating yourself.”   


Maria felt the tightness in her shoulders and chest release at the news, and she slumped a little lower in the seat, leaning forward and resting her forehead on the leather wrapped steering wheel. She was going to get bumpy indentations in her skin but she didn’t care. They were okay. She hadn’t ruined them after all.   


“Did Barton tell you why Natasha fell in? She'd seemed so afraid of the water. If I’d thought it were a possibility, I wouldn’t have turned my back on her,” she half asked, half explained.

“He'd said he wasn’t in the room at the time, but from what he could piece together it had something to do with a plastic toy pony. That maybe she had tossed it into the water along with her other aquatic toys, and realized afterwards it couldn’t swim so went to go save it? He said she kept repeating ‘pony’ and ‘sorry’ and not much else, so that’s the going theory right now. You can unclench, Maria. It obviously wasn’t your fault.”

Except it was. It really really was. Natasha hadn’t been apologizing for drowning the pony, she’d been apologizing for potentially upsetting  _her_  with the toy. The toddler knew from earlier that she was uncomfortable around them and so must have gone to retrieve it before she could see it and get upset. Natasha was terrified of baths, but had put Maria’s comfort ahead of her own fear.    


And just like that the tension in her body was back and Maria gripped the phone tightly in her hand to keep from dropping it. 

“Maria? Are you still there?”    


She nodded her head, or tried to with how she was resting it on the steering wheel. “I’m here. Just a little tired is all. I’m glad she’s alright.” She didn’t think Coulson understood just how much she meant that last part. 

“Understandable. Those three are a handful on a good day. Why don’t you finally go into the Wendy’s you’ve been parked at for the past two hours and get yourself a Frosty and then head home? Even though the babysitting gig went south, as far as SHIELD is concerned you’re not due back to HQ until Monday. Take the next two days for yourself, Maria. Rest. Relax. And stop blaming yourself. You didn’t break her. Agent Romanoff survived the Red Room; she’ll most certainly survive this.”

Maria sat up straight so she could nod for real this time, even if it was pointless because he couldn’t see her. Or could he? “Wait, how did you know I’m at a Wendy’s, sir?” she looked around the parking lot, suddenly paranoid that he’d had someone tailing her this entire time.    


“Seriously? Did you forget whose car you’re driving? Ever since Clint took Lola for an unsanctioned joy ride through the Swiss Alps I’ve made sure all my vehicles have GPS trackers in them. I’m not spying on you, I was just concerned when I noticed you hadn’t moved in two hours. Hence the call.”

“Hence the call,” Maria repeated, feeling slightly ashamed at jumping to conclusions yet again. 

“I’m hanging up now, Maria. Get yourself some food and then come by my office when you have time on Monday. You’re not in trouble, there’s just some things I should tell you about Agent Romanoff and her Little side that might help the two of you moving forward,” he told her cryptically before promptly hanging up.

Maria groaned in frustration at his tactics. He knew she had no idea what he meant by her and Romanoff ‘moving forward’, and that two whole days of puzzling over it would all but guarantee she’d show up at his office bright and early Monday morning. 

Was there something in the works at SHIELD that she didn’t know about? Was this weekend actually about more than just giving the three literally tortured agents some spontaneous but well deserved downtime? Oh god, what if Fury was planning on assigning Romanoff to her? The agent didn’t have an official handler, just an unofficial one in Coulson. 

What if this weekend had been a trial run to pair the two of them up, and she’d nearly let the girl drown in her own bathtub?    


“Fuck!” Maria dropped her phone into her lap and slammed her balled fists against the steering wheel. Truth be told, she wasn’t sure what upset her more: the fact that she may have been tested without her knowledge for a responsibility she didn’t want or ask for, or the fact that she most likely had failed the test.

Because there was no way she hadn’t failed it. Fury may have had more faith in her than she sometimes felt was warranted, but he wasn’t an idiot and Romanoff was one of the organization's most valuable assets. Logistically speaking, assigning her as the girl’s handler was the  _last_  thing SHIELD should do. Especially after tonight. 

If that's even what the meeting was going to be about.    


"Fuck you Coulson. Fuck you and your cryptic, manipulative ways.”   


Monday morning wasn’t going to come fast enough.


End file.
